We all have a story. Not the one that starts on the day we were born but our story, the one we tell ourselves. The one that defines us. As humans we are shaped by every event that happens to us. It’s unavoidable. Turn left, make a new friend. Turn right, collide with another car. It all molds us into who we are today but the way we define ourselves is different. Where does that story start? It seems that more often than not our stories begin with pain. We define ourselves by tragedy.
I was recently discussing this with my dear friend. We were talking about how we define ourselves. She’s the mother of a cancer survivor and always will be but in many ways still living in the past, in the cancer. Her daughter was diagnosed with Leukemia the day before her 2nd birthday. Now, after chemo, she’s in full remission and started Kindergarten this year. That part of the story is so amazing but it all begins with a diagnosis that would bring any mother to her knees. As a way to come to terms with it, my friend is writing it all down and purging it piece by piece. But, her story will always begin with a doctor verifying her fears and the diagnosis that forever changed her life. How could it not? When a family member told her to “let it go”, she was stunned. How could anyone, especially a mother, just “let it go”? The pain will fade but the story now has a clear beginning.
My defining stories have several beginnings – depending on the subject. I have the funny story about cutting off a cast with a hacksaw I’d hidden in my pillow to go to a dance but it started with 4 painful surgeries and the broken heart of a 14 year old girl who just wanted to go to her first dance.
My story as a mother doesn’t begin with the birth of my wonderful first born, it begins in a hospital room the day my doctor couldn’t find my baby’s heartbeat. There were multiple tries and different machines used and no one could detect that simple sign of life. In the end, everything turned out fine and they found him the next day and I had children after that but for some reason my story starts there in that devastating moment. I’m the mother of a miracle baby born to me healthy and alive despite a gram-negative fungal infection and septic shock. Wonderful and amazing, yes, if I can only get out of that room.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. Why is it that we define ourselves this way? Is it a remnant of our primal past? A mark of pride by how much pain we have endured or is it something more basic like the bad stuff just stays with you longer?
When I first got married, I worked with Alzheimer patients in a nursing home and remember one resident in particular. She couldn’t remember her name most days but if you asked her why she was missing her index finger on her right hand she would tell you her story in vivid detail. Why would that story still be clear 70 years later when her wedding pictures were photos of strangers?
How do we go about rewriting our stories and shift our definition? I don’t want to wait until the next tragedy to get a new story start. I want my story to start in sunnier places. Any thoughts?
3 comments:
That's a great point. My guess is that we begin our stories through painful or often tragic periods because those are the ones that shake us to the core and make us truly appreciate life.
I could say my one of my stories begins when I went swimming on beautiful sunny summer day; the reality is it began on a hot summer day when I was five and jumped off the diving board of the first time. The ring floaty flew over my head and I sunk to the bottom terrified until dad jumped in and saved me. What I consider my true beginning (now at least) is when I left the church I once cherished. I will not discuss that here but that experience feeling such hopelessness and betrayal shaped me into me.
I think it's overcoming hardships that help us be better overall. Are you a better person today because you experienced great joys well OR because you experienced great sorrows well?
i guess that is the question. hey, i remember that sunny day.
What an eloquent post, Ami! My thoughts go like this: we remember the things that we do because they are truly pivotal moments in our lives. Not every story begins with tragedy, and not every ending is filled with joy, but I feel that what/how we remember is largely based on how we come into the world - just as we are born left- or right-handed, homo- or hetero-sexual, we are born with an inherent way that we process information. If you listen to a group of people re-telling the story of an event they were all present for, it's obvious that they did not perceive things the same way at the time, and so their recollection is colored by that (listening to Jason and his siblings, for example). The physical events stay the same, but there are subtle (or sometimes not-so-subtle) differences in the emotional impact of the event.
I am truly blessed to be one whose memories are almost exclusively positive. Yes, I remember the "bad times", but the events that start my stories are things that people say or sing about or that I read that make a huge impact and turn my thoughts - and life - a different direction. There's a book out there - "Unlocking the Secrets of Childhood Memories" (I forget who the author is) that theorizes that the things we remember from childhood point to our life philosophies and how we interpret our world in our adult life. Makes sense to me...
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